Welcome to Greek Poetry

January 18, 2006 Nikos Engonopoulos (1907-1985) was, together with his close friend and fellow poet, Andreas Embeirikos, a pioneer of surrealism in Greece. He belonged to a group of poets (the famous ‘generation of the 1930s’ that included among its ranks the Nobel Prize poets George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis) who through their poetry and other works (Engonopoulos also through his paintings, since he was also a renowned surrealist painter) brought about a revolution in Greek poetry, a radical ‘turning’ (to use one the title of Seferis’ first poetry collection). Engonopoulos’ own statement on his poetry and painting, which appears here, is by far the best introduction to his aspirations and aims both as an artist and an intellectual. Moreover, his long poem ‘Bolivar’ is not only his best-known work but also one of the most significant poems of Modern Greek literature.

Titos Patrikios was born in Athens in 1928. He studied law at the University of Athens (1946-1951) and sociology at the Sorbonne and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris (1959-1964). He joined the youth section of the National Liberation Front in 1942 and participated in the operations of the Greek Popular Liberation Army against the Germans in 1944-1945. In 1945 his scheduled execution by collaborators with the Germans was called off at the last minute. He was detained in Makronisos (a camp for left-wing soldiers) in 1951-1952 and was exiled to the concentration camp of St. Stratis in 1952-1953. He spent several years in Western Europe, mainly Paris (three separate periods between 1959 and 1975). He has worked as a lawyer, journalist and translator and as a researcher in various Centres of Sociological Studies in Greece and France. Several of his works on youth problems and drug abuse have appeared in French. Some have been translated into English, Spanish and Russian. He first appeared in Greek letters with a poem published in a youth journal in August 1943. Since then he has published numerous collections of poetry and a number of books of essays. He was one of the founders of Review of the Arts, a historic left-wing journal that attempted to break away from the monolithic, dogmatic views of the official Greek Communist Party. Many of his works have been translated into a number of European languages. His poetry has been characterised by many as ‘political’ or ‘social’. Although this is true, one has to add that it is the ironic and sarcastic manner in which Patrikios addresses many of the issues of his day that makes his poetry lasting and a pleasure to read. Patrikos is never didactic or pedantic. He shares with his readers, in a direct and unpretentious style, the ‘truths’ that life painfully but also joyfully reveals to him.